Does your autistic child with ADHD struggle with disorganization, difficulty planning, challenging emotions and/or distraction? They may dealing with a lack of executive function skills, which is common among autistics with ADHD. These are essential skills to be successful in school, work and life. And, they can be improved. How are the lack of executive function skills holding back your child or teen with autism and ADHD?
What are executive function skills?
First, what are executive function skills? The Harvard Center for the Developing Child says “executive function and self-regulation skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Just as an air traffic control system at a busy airport safely manages the arrivals and departures of many aircraft on multiple runways, the brain needs this skill set to filter distractions, prioritize tasks, set and achieve goals, and control impulses.”
I love this definition and the analogy they use with air traffic controllers. It’s a great way to think about how we use these essential skills every day.
Executive function skills are bucketed into three categories:
- Working Memory – the ability to hold information for following instructions, planning, organizing, etc.
- Cognitive or Flexible Thinking – this is the ability to think about things in more than one way and is important for problem solving
- Inhibitory or Self Control – this includes the ability to pay attention and resist distractions and/or temptations
Some specific executive function skills include:
- Impulse control
- Emotional control
- Planning
- Task initiation and completion
- Organizing
- Self-monitoring
- Prioritizing
- Perseverance
- Time management
How do you determine which executive function skills your autistic child lacks?
How can you determine which executive function skills your child or teen with autism and ADHD lacks? Observing their behavior or struggles in school can help most parents, caregivers or teachers fairly easily identify which of these skills a child or teen lacks.
When determining my son J’s executive function skills level (and my own as his parent), I liked the assessment that was included in the “Smart but Scattered Teens: The “Executive Skills” Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential” book (affiliate link). It helps you determine what are your teen’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to executive function skills. It also helps you rank them as which ones are the most prevalent. This can help you determine how you can best help your child.
I also learned from the book that if one of your strengths in executive function skills is one of your child’s or teen’s biggest weaknesses, then you probably are not the best person to help your child improve that one. It’s best to seek help from others to help your child.
Ways the lack of executive function skills are holding back your child with autism and ADHD
Lacking these essential skills in life can affect your autistic/ADHD child or teen in many ways. These can include:
1. Impact to relationships
If your child has difficulty controlling their emotions and impulsivity, their relationships will suffer because you as a parent, other relatives, teachers, peers, friends and others can grow frustrated over time at the repeat of the same issues related to these. Lack of these executive function skills can greatly and negatively impact their relationships with many people in their lives.
2. Ability to master life skills
Life skills that require planning, organizing, task initiation/completion, prioritization and more can be greatly affected by the lack of executive function skills. That could include money management, career development, household management, health care management, meal planning and more. Improving these important skills in life can help set your child or teen up for success as an adult.
3. Competence in school
Lack of executive function skills such as the ability to pay attention, working memory, time management and self-monitoring can affect your autistic child or teen’s ability to do well in school. If you help your child/teen improve some of these skills, they will be able to learn better at school.
4. Low self-esteem
The lack of executive function skills can make your child or teen think less of themselves because they struggle so much in school, home, extracurricular activities and relationships. This results in low self-esteem and decreased confidence in their own abilities.
5. Problem-solving capabilities
Not being able to be flexible and adaptable in their thinking may limit your autistic child or teen’s problem-solving capabilities. Helping them improve their executive function skills can really help them see things differently and understand others’ perspectives to better solve problems and issues.
How to help your child improve their executive function skills
While the lack of executive function skills can significantly affect your autistic/ADHD child or teen, the good news is that these skills can be improved! I have written many blog posts about improving different areas of executive function skills. To help your child or teen, read these posts for tips and steps you can take to help them.
- 4 ways to help your ADHD child with impulse control
- 12 ways to help your child with autism and ADHD improve executive function
- 14 ways to teach an autistic and ADHD child self-regulation
- 9 tips to teach your autistic and ADHD child or teen organization skills
- 4 ways to educate your autistic and ADHD child about perspective taking
- “Smart but Scattered Teens” helps parents collaborate with their autistic and ADHD teens to improve executive function skills
- 5 ways to help your autistic and ADHD child develop emotional control
- 8 ways to help your child with ADHD focus when bored or disinterested
- How to help your child with ADHD overcome procrastination
- 10 ways to help your autistic and ADHD child improve their working memory
What ways have you helped your child with autism and ADHD improve their executive function skills? Leave a comment below so that we can share and encourage each other on this journey!
Additional resources
Do you want to find out more about executive function skills and how to help your autistic/ADHD child or teen improve theirs? Take a look at these resources.
Executive Functioning Workbook for Kids: 40 Fun Activities to Build Memory, Flexible Thinking, and Self-Control Skills at Home, in School, and Beyond (affiliate link)
The Executive Functioning Workbook for Teens: Help for Unprepared, Late, and Scattered Teens (affiliate link)
Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary “Executive Skills” Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential (affiliate link)
